


Four Times Juno Steel Had the Opportunity to Kiss Peter Nureyev (And the One Time He Took It)

by onetiredboy



Series: Jay’s 5+1 Fics [1]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Art Attached, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Other, Pining, S3 spoilers, idk what else, its not angsty yet but it probably will be, just wanna write them YEARNING
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-01-30 15:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21430555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onetiredboy/pseuds/onetiredboy
Summary: Oh yes, that's right, this isn't your regular 5 Times 1 Time Fic because..... I'm lazy! Anyway, since Kabert haven't got us all yearning hard enough already, jump on in, reader, and enjoy a rough but slowly learning ex-detective navigate the tension around his highly anxious-but-good-at-hiding-it ex.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: Jay’s 5+1 Fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1844275
Comments: 201
Kudos: 620





	1. One

“It seems we’ve done it again, ex-Detective Steel.”

He still has the same smirk, after all this time. One corner of his mouth quirked like there is nothing in the universe funnier to him than the idea that he is not in control of it. It is, Juno reluctantly admits, both very alluring and very much out of character for Nureyev’s current persona. Or maybe it just bleeds through – the Peter Nureyev ego does seem to prevail regardless of the mask he puts on, same as the Juno Steel sarcasm.

“You’re really going to have to find another nickname for me,” Juno mutters, looking down at his comms to get his eyes off that mouth.

They can talk about whatever now that the heist is over; the kind of event they’re at is filled with noise that drowns out general conversation and they’re no longer in the vicinity of being paid any attention by anybody in the room more important than the cleaning robot that is currently bumping into a leg of the table underneath them over and over again.

“Mm,” Peter muses, “Ex-Detective doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it? But then again, your new profession is hardly better: I’m not going to start calling you a thief.”

He’s being friendlier than usual – it’s the heist. The heist well done, that they pulled off together, disguised as old high-school-friends-turned-business-partners at a conference for entrepreneurs. That’s what Juno tells himself, anyway, that the ring to his voice is all adrenaline no affection, and the space that explanation puts him in is much more comfortable – one he can play in, himself, if need be. He shoots a message to Buddy to let her know they’re ready for their getaway and slips the comms back into his pocket.

He picks up a champagne flute, “I thought you were meant to be the one good at names.”

Someone walks past their table and Peter laughs, bright and brilliant. It’s not Peter Nureyev’s laugh; it’s the laugh of Earl Diamond – a first name Juno rolled his eyes at and a last name Juno clenched his teeth at and an alias that represents a man who has had everything handed to him on a silver platter and is blissfully unaware of it.

Juno went in for the far more sensible ‘Hera Black’. Nureyev had basically pouted at the very mention of it, starting on a lecture about aesthetics and at least choosing something that sounds nice, and what about ‘Marchioness Dagger’, at least it had a certain amount of flair to it, and it tied in his whole (Nureyev had actually gestured to him) ‘noir thing’. Juno had argued back that going in for a goddess’s name when he already had plenty of associations with the whole idea of naming people after mythology was enough, and that sooner or later people were going to notice Nureyev’s naming conventions and figure him out for it and that the last thing they needed were _two _thieves prancing around pretentiously pretending to be royalty, and Juno had had one very satisfying moment to bask in Nureyev’s expression before Buddy pressed a hand to the bridge of her nose and asked the two of them to _please _keep the bickering to the bedroom.

Juno had shut up fast. Peter had cleared his throat. It was hard enough navigating being friends through the obvious attraction Juno still felt for Nureyev without the rest of the crew pointing out the tension.

It hadn’t been made easier when Juno had tried to chat up one of their marks, a woman named Achilles Temple (and really, who needs aliases when people come up with this stuff on their very own?) who was co-head of one of the smaller pharmaceutical companies they really needed info from, and she’d stopped Juno short by leaning in, putting a slender hand on his wrist, and muttering, “I think we both know who you’re wishing I was. You’ve been making eyes at him all night.” Then she'd added, "I like your thigh cut-outs," and sashayed away with a wink, leaving Juno having to come up with a _very _good lie to tell Nureyev as to why he hadn’t gotten any information from her.

“I’m thinking I’ll keep a hold of this one,” Nureyev is saying when Juno remembers to pay attention, his champagne flute loose between his fingers with the kind of honest, clumsy carelessness that makes Juno a little nervous. His look tonight is a little more rounded than usual, too, more innocent idiot than sharp-angled and seductive – it has a touch of Duke Rose to it. It makes it all the more incredible that Juno knows that despite the vaguely clueless look in his eye, the slide of one half of his blazer almost completely off of one shoulder, he’s currently watching the movements of Tristan Temple, Achilles’ spouse, and the person who just walked past their table, in the reflection of the clock on the wall opposite them.

“This what?” Juno asks. His comms buzzes and he checks the notification. “Ten minutes,” he advises.

“This name,” Peter says casually.

Juno’s chest clenches. He looks sideways at Nureyev, “I thought you couldn’t reuse names?”

“I don’t mean reuse it,” Peter tips his flute back and drinks the rest of his champagne. “Just… keep a hold of it. In my mind. It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Diamond. Earl Diamond.”

“It’s not that nice,” Juno mumbles. He puts his glass down on the table a little harder than he really means to, and fights the urge to curl up on himself and bring his arms close to his chest – Hera Black was as light-hearted and charming as his business partner, after all. It was their whole _thing_.

Back when Juno’s standard state of being was grumpy, it was fairly easy to disguise honest reactions to things – any kind of tense movement or snapped insult was just another splintered off side effect of Juno Steel’s roughish charm, after all. It’s much harder to hide these things when Juno is learning, slowly, to relax his shoulders when he sits, to give smiles far more freely, regardless of how he feels as though he really does not have the face for a toothy grin. The point is, he is far more readable now, and Nureyev was one of the only people who could read him even back then.

He cocks his head. It’s a break of character. Earl Diamond is not a perceptive man; Peter Nureyev is. It’s a wordless question, so Juno gives a wordless answer in the form of a tight-lipped half-smile.

Then the words come out anyway. He’s getting a bit too good at this whole opening up thing sometimes. “Name of an ex,” he says.

Nureyev’s chin lifts with recognition, the confused look on his face melting away, “Ah. Which name? First or last?”

“Last. We—” Juno tries, but he runs out of the ability to share halfway through and his throat clamps down.

Juno’s comms beeps. He couldn’t be more relieved, “We have to go.”

“Already?” Nureyev asks, sitting up in his chair, and the champagne flute slips easily out of his fingers and onto the floor. In the ensuing chaos, Nureyev proceeds to make the biggest deal anybody has ever made out of a broken glass, promising, in a voice on the verge of tears, a whole case of new ones to make up for it to the hostess of the party, who first politely assures him it’s not a problem and then begs him to stop worrying about it, until Hera Black gives a guilty little grin and suggests that maybe his friend Diamond had a little too much and they should leave for the night.

It’s the smoothest getaway they’ve ever had – Juno literally hears the hostess sigh in relief as the doors begin to close behind them.

The shuttle waiting for them is autopiloted by Jet, still on the ship, and when they walk in Buddy’s face bursts to life on a screen.

“Black. Diamond,” she says, and Juno needs to stop feeling that way at the sound of that name (honestly, how long has it been now?). “Congratulations on a heist brilliantly done. We were watching the whole time.”

The camera shifts and Rita’s face pops into view. She waves enthusiastically with orange-stained fingers and holds up a tablet with the camera feed from inside the conference room on it.

“Good to know there’s no such thing as privacy,” Juno mumbles, in order to say literally anything. Hoping, he guesses, that his words will act as shovels – digging out the bad feeling in the bottom of his lungs. His dark trenchcoat is still hanging over one of the pilot's chairs where he left it, and he swings it back on.

“It was quite good, wasn’t it?” Nureyev grins, very pleased, “I haven’t had fun like that in a while. Might have been the easiest heist I’ve pulled since I was, oh, thirty-six at least.”

“What’s the easy heist you did at thirty-six?” Juno asks, and without so much as looking over his shoulder, Nureyev responds.

“Death mask of Grimpotheuthis, of course.”

Juno isn’t sure whether or not to be genuinely offended. He frowns, mumbling, “Hey…”

“Well, we’ll be waiting eagerly for you two to come back so that we can celebrate,” Buddy says. “Have you considered keeping the name, Peter? It does suit you.”

Juno looks away so that he doesn’t have to see if (how) Peter shows any kind of recognition. He sits down on an upside down crate and stares at the silver of his heeled boots, trying to catch the light on them in a particular spot.

“No, no. I’ve made my alias bed aboard the Carte Blanche, and now I have to lie in it, regardless how poorly the name Peter Ransom has grown on me.”

“That seems awfully boring of you, Peter.”

“I ain’t like the name Diamond much, anyway,” Rita pipes up and Juno feels sick again, “Why don’t we leave those two alone to calm down, alright Captain Aurinko?”

If Buddy picks up on Rita’s uncharacteristically sharp tone, she says nothing. “But of course,” she purrs instead, “We’ll see you back aboard in fifteen.”

Her face disappears from the screen.

Silence spills into the room like ink in water. For a moment, it’s deafening, but then the small atmospheric creaks of the shuttle and distant hum of the engine seep back in. The first kind of silence is crushing and suffocating; the second is vast and isolating.

Then he hears heels, soft on the metal of the shuttle, and Nureyev sits down on a crate beside him. Juno doesn’t look at him.

“You should have told me you didn’t like the name,” Nureyev says, his voice even and calm, and Juno leans back against the cold wall of the ship and sighs.

“What? And suffer through your whining?” Juno nudges him and Nureyev lets him, but he doesn’t laugh along. Juno sighs again.

“Didn’t want people asking questions,” he says. Then… “Didn’t know it would bother me so much.”

Nureyev hesitates, “I wouldn’t have asked.”

Juno laughs. He leans his head back against the wall and lets it roll to look at him, “Yeah you would’ve. You wouldn’t be able to help yourself. You literally did ask, the moment I even hinted at it.”

“Ah,” Nureyev smiles softly, embarrassed, giving me a glimpse of those teeth, and _that_ – that’s something Juno knows that only he gets to see. Nureyev as himself.

Maybe his lungs can’t handle the change in atmosphere as they take off. Maybe that smile takes his breath away.

“I know how you feel, at least,” Nureyev looks away from Juno before he’s even recovered. He brings one knee up, stretches the other leg out, “I still can’t say—some names. You know the one: three letters, starts with M. Feels like… giving him permission to haunt me.”

“Yeah,” Juno says. His throat is suddenly closed over, the back of his eye and the gap where the other should be warming with tears. “We were engaged,” Juno says.

Nureyev looks at him too fast to mask his shock. After a second he flicks back to calm nonchalance, but it’s too late. Juno offers him a half smile and shrugs his shoulders, “Didn’t work out.”

“I’m… sorry,” Nureyev says, and Juno shrugs again.

“It’s for the best. After all, I wouldn’t be here if it didn’t happen,” and then, quickly, so Nureyev knows ‘here’ doesn’t mean ‘alive’, “Wouldn’t be with you.”

It’s only after he says it that he really hears what it sounds like, and Juno suspends himself in a state of not-quite panic. He wants to wait until Nureyev says something back.

He doesn’t. Juno feels like a schoolgirl with a crush – it’s pathetic. They sit in silence, and Juno isn’t sure if he can hear Nureyev breathing or if his brain just tricks him into thinking it because it’s what he wants to hear. Then Nureyev moves.

He sits forward and reaches into the coat pocket of his blazer and brings out his hand, curled shut. He reaches it out to Juno and the fingers unfurl, showing off two small opal teardrop earrings nestled like tiny bird eggs.

Juno looks down at them and then up at him, “What—?"

“I thought they’d look nice on you,” Peter says quietly.

The laugh Juno hears himself make is one he doesn’t think he’s ever heard himself make in his life, and it’s in stark contrast to Peter’s quiet, almost admissive tone. It’s loud and light, genuinely thrilled, and completely disbelieving, “Did you _steal _these?! _How_?!”

Nureyev has the audacity to wink at him, his grin absurdly pleased, “A magician never reveals his tricks, my partner-in-crime.”

Juno laughs again, “Nickname still needs work.” His fingers feel too big and clumsy for earrings as pretty as these. He plucks them carefully out of Nureyev’s slender hand and takes out the earrings he has in.

Nureyev clicks his tongue, “I’ll workshop it. Are you putting them in now?”

“I want to know if your eye for jewellery is as good as your eye for fashion,” Juno mutters, and starts poking them through his ears. When he’s done, he turns to Nureyev, “Well?”

“Ah,” Peter shifts through his pocket.

“Please tell me you don’t have a—of course you have a hand-mirror in there,” Juno rolls his eyes as Nureyev pulls out a little intricately carved wooden thing which flicks open to show smudged glass.

“How else am I meant to check if my lipstick has smudged?” Nureyev asks, offended. “Now, take a look.”

He leans in right next to Juno and holds out the mirror between the two of them. The earrings are real opal gemstones held in place with black wire, and Juno has to admit it: they look really good on him. He turns his face first one way and then the next.

“I’m glad you like them. Consider them a gift, an apology for my insensitivity over the last few weeks. And for tonight, with the name.”

Juno snorts. The sentiment is cute, but, “These hardly even count as a gift,” he points out, “You literally just stole them.”

Nureyev raises an eyebrow and scoffs, “I’d like to see you steal a pair of earrings that someone is _wearing_ next time. It was almost impossible.”

“You should give these back,” Juno says.

“Give me the word and I’ll turn this shuttle around right now and do it,” Peter offers. When Juno doesn’t respond, that smirk crawls back onto his face again.

And now Juno is looking at Peter next to him in the mirror. Peter’s shoulder is pressed right up to Juno, and when Juno breathes, shallow as he can, he smells that cologne. He just gets a hint of it, but his heart aches and his head spins. The memory it gives him, of a time-stopping kiss back before all of this began, is too vivid.

Peter clicks the mirror shut and puts it back in his pocket. “I’m glad,” he says, and Juno looks at him.

“Glad about what?”

For one second, Peter’s long fingers brush over Juno’s. He squeezes his hand for just short enough an amount of time to leave no doubt to its platonic intention, and Nureyev smiles at him. “I’m glad you’re with me. Despite what happened for you to get here.”

And Juno wants, so badly, to stop time with him again.

The moment passes when the shuttle’s docking alarm goes off and Juno realises they’re back on board. In the minutes that follow, Juno watches Peter slide back in to the person he is around the others – into _Ransom_. They don’t get as many moments alone as Juno would hope.

Peter clicks a button on the dashboard of the shuttle as it settles into the docking bay, and the door begins to open. Juno can already hear Rita chattering on the other side.

He doesn’t have long. Juno steps closer and closes a hand around Peter’s wrist. Peter looks down at it and then up at him, questioning.

“Thanks, Nureyev,” Juno says, as earnestly as he can. He squeezes Nureyev’s wrist, then lets go, and Peter smiles.

“Any time, my dear,” Nureyev says, and Juno looks up at him, but he’s staring straight ahead, and maybe he never said that at all, maybe it was the sound of the shuttle door opening. Probably.

Juno can’t bear to think otherwise. 


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I AM BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHATS UP i havent edited this at all

Peter isn’t sure how he lets it happen. He’s embarrassed, quite frankly, that it happens at all, not to mention more than once.

He supposes he owes it, in part, to his newfound policy of rooting himself to the ground. He has a stubborn will and is more adaptive than ninety percent of people — he knows this because it has saved his life over, and over, and over again.

His most recent adaptation, solidified and made fixed by his stubborn will, scares him. He is a creature of survival, which is why it frightens him to find himself now, stuck between the quiet determination to make his new life work and the petrifying fear that it has left him at a lower chance of surviving.

He should not have stayed.

This is an objective fact, and Peter knows it. It sits branded into the bottom of his stomach, and he feels it every time there is a sound he doesn’t recognise in the belly of the ship, every time he hears whispers of a conversation about another ship passing by in range.

He feels it all the time, almost constantly, except for when he is near Juno.

That is the issue; subjectively, Peter knows that he should keep staying. He knows it by the hot flush of determination he has every time he sees Juno — to catch up to him, prove (to Juno or to himself, Peter isn’t sure), that he too can learn to _exist_. Not in the vague sense of the word, but the intentional version of it. To be _known_, he supposes, is another way to put it, and in the process to have to confront once and for all the task of getting to know himself.

Nureyev is a master thief. Nureyev is adaptable. His appearance is adaptable, his mannerisms, his cadence, his habits, his name — and all of these things highly attuned to his surroundings. The fluidity this grants him with has been the key to his invisibility. He is like a bird building and tearing down and building again its nest without pause, so that nobody, not even Nureyev, can tell the shape of the true structure, and _that_ is what has made him untraceable.

Aboard the Carte Blanche, Peter must fall into a rhythm of patterned behaviour. It unnerves him on a variety of different levels. On a more personal level, he’s not sure whether the person he’s learning to be, with frightening consistency, is _Nureyev _or _Ransom _or somebody else, and is afraid that some of the habits growing into him, like a root into soil, aren’t ones he’d like to have if he had the objectivity to pick and choose. He’s frightened that that’s what it means to get to know oneself — to find out that one isn't as likeable in detail as they are when observed from a distance, and Nureyev has only ever observed himself at a distance. He feels so incredibly naive in the face of it, helpless to understand a process every other human being has been going through since their birth, and naive is _not_ a feeling that Peter Nureyev enjoys.

On a more career-focused level, he is frightened of losing his adaptability, is worried that sooner or later a curious mind might be able to find one of his roots and follow it back to the source. He is a bird caged, and _that _is what leaves him wandering the halls of the ship at the vague approximation of what the crew has decided on being well past midnight, mapping his escape.

He is not escaping. And he already has the layout of the ship mapped in his head. He had the layout mapped before he stepped a foot here. But he pushes it out of his mind intentionally and walks it again. It makes him feel calmer, feigning that he could escape at any moment if he _really _wanted to. His eyes sweep over the access panel to the escape pods, and he repeats a code in his head _7482-47-843-77384378-422537-6626273_. It’s a long number, but he only had to hear it twice before cracking Rita’s code and it became simple to recall it after that.

It’s the same access code that they use for the shuttle bay. Peter walks past it several minutes later. He is savouring the sound of his heels against the metal floor of the ship, hearing the echo fold around him. Vanity is something he’s always known he’s had — it’s a survival tactic as good as any other — and so he lets himself bask in it, just to remind himself he can. _You are important. You come first — (First rule of thieving, always believe you__’re the most important person in the room) — _

He listens to his heels stutter to a stop, and hears his heart knock in his chest. He has allowed himself to become a cripplingly sentimental man. Mag always warned him about that side of him, and Peter had very carefully suppressed it.

He is losing control. Peter’s jaw clenches, and he keeps walking. _Five exits on the ship three shuttle bays two emergency pods maximum capacity four people directions to the two closest exits to my quarters are: first left second right access code 7842—_

He repeats his escape plan to himself like a mantra until he realises where his uncontrollable sentimental legs have taken him. He stops outside Juno’s room and feels his tongue, heavy and dry, in his mouth.

He cannot think of Juno. Not now.

Peter is starting to learn a horrible detail about himself. His mind does not give much of a fuck about what it can and cannot think about.

Passing by Juno’s door sets something off in him. He makes another round of the ship and manages to keep his thoughts off of Juno, but only by letting them focus on something vivid enough to distract him. Which happens to be, as it usually is, the last time he had and sense of identity.

He thinks of Brahma. He thinks of a boy with long hair and a _lot _of not-yet broken dreams. By the time he finds himself back at Juno’s door, he is shaking.

He knocks, and hears Mag laughing at him from the grave he doesn’t have.

—

When Juno opens the door, his first thought is that Peter has overdosed.

It’s a stupid, instinctive response, one of many that formed from staying in one place for too long, leaving him with well-worn routes of behaviour that virtually behave themselves, when given the appropriate stimulus. Shaky hands, blown pupils, fast breathing — overdose. Juno has never been as free as Peter has, to shake those old habits. It’s something about him he’s always envied.

“Shit,” he says, and gets his hands on Nureyev to pull him inside before it’s even crossed his mind to ask.

“I apologise for the interruption—” Nureyev is saying, and something about having gotten lost in his head, which frightens Juno more, maybe, than the idea of an overdose does. Juno doesn’t listen properly until he has Nureyev sitting down on his bed with a pillow behind his back.

Then he sits down near Nureyev’s knees, which places them an appropriate distance apart thanks to the frankly ridiculous length of his legs, “Are you okay?” he asks.

“I…” Nureyev says, and then closes his mouth, presses his lips together. Juno tries not to look too closely, instead searches over him for any signs of physical harm. He’s not sure whether it’s a relief when he finds none; in his experience, physical illness is a lot easier to deal with.

“I was… thinking of Brahma,” Nureyev says quietly, “That’s all. I think… since you’re the only person who knows…”

“Kind of just found yourself here, huh?” Juno asks. He knows that feeling, too, has found himself at Rita’s place more times than he could count. Rita’s, or Mick’s, or… Diamond’s. He refocuses just in time to see Nureyev’s slight nod.

“Do you want some tea?” Juno asks, and then stands up anyway, “Stay here. Get…” he gestures awkwardly at the covers of his bed, “Comfortable, if you’d like. I’ll be back.”

He’s not sure how Nureyev likes his tea. He figures he’ll just find whatever box has the most unpronounceable name and go with that. He guesses that Nureyev isn’t much of a milk or sugar guy.

It’s all irrelevant detail; Juno knows he offered to make Nureyev his tea just so he could get out of his room as fast as possible and process. For one thing, he’s in boxers with little red hearts on them and an over-sized grey shirt that says ‘BOSS LADY’ in faded letters, a piece from his extensive collection of similarly-labelled merchandise, forced upon him by Rita over the years. But he has neither the time nor the decency to really care about what he’s wearing, even if Nureyev has fashion standards Juno couldn’t meet with ten million creds and a personal stylist.

He’s more focused, right now, on the idea of having to calm Peter Nureyev down from an anxiety attack without somehow crossing the invisible boundary that has been between them since they apologised. It changes every day — sometimes it’s ‘all look no touch’, other times Nureyev casually lets his legs rest over Juno’s thighs as he lies down on the couch while they’re watching streams with Rita.

Juno finds himself in the kitchen and his first stop is to the sink, where he splashes his face to wake himself up. Then he flicks on the kettle and rummages through the tea and coffee shelf.

He finds a green-yellow box with a word so long it takes up almost the entire cardboard and _has _to be in another language, because he refuses to believe there’s a Solar word that long, and decides that it’s probably Nureyev’s.

They have packeted sugar, which at least means he can offer some to Nureyev, but he doesn’t feel like carrying a saucer of milk back too. He’s fairly confident Nureyev isn’t a milk guy. He’s sure he would know if he was.

He takes the tea back to his quarters, which succeeds in quieting his mind because he has to watch it intently and walk twice as slow to try not to spill it. It crosses his mind that Nureyev might not even be in his quarters when he comes back.

The tea spills. Juno swears loudly and tries not to drop it entirely.

He makes it back to his quarters biting his tongue to distract himself from the feeling of the skin on his knuckles burning.

Peter has taken his shoes off. And also his pants. Which is fine. His shirt, though half un-buttoned, is long enough to cover the end of his boxers. And it’s not like Juno can point fingers, because he’s literally also in his underwear.

He’s just… not quite as beautiful, is the difference.

Juno carefully steps around the side of the bed and places down the cup of tea and the handful of sugars he grabbed. Then he sits down, after a moment of deliberation, on the floor.

Peter takes his glasses off and folds them beside Juno’s bed. He folds one leg over the other. Juno looks up to take his eyes off of Nureyev’s legs and gets caught in staring at his sternum, the bones just visible under his skin, and Juno assumes he imagines being able to see the flutter of his pulse on his chest. He is so fragile and so strong, and, unfortunately, the hottest person Juno has ever seen in his life.

This is not the time, Juno reminds himself. Nureyev’s movements are a kind of mechanical that is clearly reflective of a man who has shut himself down to protect himself, and Juno knows he is not trying to be enticing. He is being vulnerable, and Juno’s hungry gaze is unwelcome, selfish.

Then Peter rips the top off of a packet of sugar and pours it into the tea. Juno realises, with a quick glance to the saucer the mug is on, that it is his third sugar. He has to count again. While he does, Peter casually picks up a fourth sugar and tears the top off of it.

“Wow,” Juno mutters, after Peter’s fifth sugar. “Does Vespa know you drink your tea like that?”

Peter pours the last packet in and arches an eyebrow at Juno, “Does Vespa know you scrape the salad off of every meal into your lap when you think she isn’t looking and hide it in your pockets to throw it out later?”

Juno’s mouth opens and shuts. Peter offers him the quirk of a smile which is, unmistakably, fond.

Juno isn’t sure how to deal with that, so he doesn’t.

“No milk?” asks Peter casually.

Juno swears under his breath.

They sit in silence for a while, Juno with his back pressed against the uncomfortable metal of the ship, Nureyev drinking his more-sugar-than-water tea. The only light is from Juno’s bedside lamp, and the shadows it paints over the line of his collarbone, and the vague hint of his ribs from where his shirt falls open, has Juno wishing for the first time in his life that he had a cup of tea as well.

It occurs to him that, although they’ve barely shared a word, this is the most vulnerable Peter Nureyev has ever been to Juno Steel. And then Nureyev isn’t just hot, he’s _beautiful_, and not just physically but on a deeply personal level, and Juno is fucked and he knows it.

“Nureyev,” Juno says quietly, and a shiver runs up Peter’s body.

Juno rushes to apologise but it dies in his throat for some reason he can’t explain. Instinct, he guesses. Instead, he only says, “What can I do?”

Peter’s impossibly thin shoulders shrug. He places his tea down and looks down at Juno. Juno’s never asked whether Peter’s glasses are fakes or not, and if they’re not, how strong they are, so he can’t really tell if he sees what’s written on his face — _I__’ll do anything. Anything you need. _

“It’s difficult,” Nureyev says suddenly, like the words have bubbled out of his throat out of his control, and Juno sees a frown form and smooth away on his face in the time it would take a bird’s wings to beat. “Being still,” he says.

Juno holds his breath and waits for Nureyev to continue. Call it instinct.

“I keep thinking they’ve found me,” Nureyev says finally, and then he laughs sharply, derisively, at himself, and then as fast as he was laughing he’s crying.

Juno shoots up to the bed faster than he can think. He’s never seen Nureyev cry before but he’s seen people he cares about cry before enough to know that the panic he feels isn’t born out of any fear of danger but a reflexive response to the feeling of his heart breaking.

Nureyev has stopped crying before Juno can decide whether or not he should touch him. His hand is still hovering over Peter’s arm when he lifts one of his own up, wiping his tears away. “Look at me: pathetic,” he laughs again, “You know what I am, Juno?”

Juno doesn’t know, “A…” he tries, “Master thief?”

“A fake,” Nureyev says.

Juno’s heart clenches a little more in his chest.

“I’ve gotten so good at pretending that I know where I’m going, what I’m doing, who I _am_,” Nureyev continues. He draws his arms in to himself, hunching down slightly as though he’s going to fold over. Juno has the irrational urge to offer him some more clothes, “You have no idea how frightening it is when you realise you’ve tricked yourself. When you realise the real you is as aimless and… _useless _as a child.”

Juno can’t take it anymore. He leans his head onto Nureyev’s shoulder, tries not to press his lips to the skin of Nureyev’s shoulder, and laughs softly, “I think you just described being human,” he says, “All all of us are ever doing is tricking ourselves into thinking we know anything about ourselves.”

Nureyev starts crying again. Juno finds his hand and lets him. Now that Nureyev’s reminded him of it, Juno can feel the existential prickle of fear under his own skin as well, but he fights it down to focus on helping Nureyev.

“I know,” is all Juno says eventually. “I’m scared, too.”

“My mascara’s running,” Peter mutters. Juno laughs.

Juno gets him some tissues and Peter ends up with panda eyes that Juno somehow manages not to laugh at. He does snort though, which ends up with him getting a sharp elbow-jab to the ribs that hits in just the right spot to leave him winded.

“Oh, don’t be so delicate,” Nureyev says, in the same kind of tone Juno used to use on Ben after he hit him and didn’t want him calling on Ma.

“Don’t be so goddamn sharp,” Juno mutters, and shoves him. Nureyev goes backwards onto Juno’s bed and tenses up, and for a brief second Juno thinks _so this is how I die, _and then Peter relaxes and laughs, showing off his sharp teeth.

It’s… a lot to look at. So Juno doesn’t.

“You staying here?” Juno asks instead, gesturing to Peter’s folded glasses and crawling under his blankets. After a moment, he does something absurd, and puts Peter’s glasses on.

“Fuck, you’re blind,” Juno says.

Nureyev sits up and looks at him, “Don’t exaggerate, dear. Would you… mind if I stayed?” he adds, quietly. “I feel like I just need…” he trails off and then shrugs, clearly unable to articulate what it is he needs.

Juno knows that feeling. “Course you can,” he soothes, and pats the bed beside him.

Nureyev slides into the blankets, “It’s a little unfair of you,” he says.

“What is?” Juno turns to look at him, suddenly worried. He tracks over everything he’s said or done in the past hour, searching for anything that could be construed as offencive.

“You look far more handsome in my glasses than I do,” Nureyev tells him.

Juno’s brain shorts out. Then a peal of nervous laughter bubbles up from his stomach, giving him time to shove Nureyev and glare at him, “That’s only because you can’t see me in all my gory detail when I’m wearing them instead of you.”

“Maybe,” Peter admits, and grins facetiously.

Juno pulls Peter’s glasses off of his face and folds them back up on the bedside table, “Are you alright if I turn out the light?”

“Perfectly, dear.”

Juno knows it’s habit that has Nureyev attaching pet names and epithets to every time he talks to him. It’s a habit he really wishes Nureyev was a little more aware about. He flicks off the light.

Peter shuffles down in the blankets, and so so does Juno. The blankets feel cold in contrast to the warmth of their banter, still simmering in the bottom of Juno’s stomach but quickly fading.

The two of them are silent. The silence between them is very, very loud.

The silence between them has a name, and it is History — capital H. It is History that presses up between them both and makes its presence known. Juno’s fingers fidget in the blankets and he wishes he’d just moved a little closer before. Touching Nureyev would be awkward but nowhere near as awkward as this, the space between them clearly intentional and carved in the name of History.

Peter moves first.

“Juno,” he says quietly — it’s not the first time Juno has heard his name from Nureyev like this, soft and muffled by blankets and sleepiness. Juno’s heart thuds.

“Mm?” he responds, not trusting his throat not to clip his words if he tries to speak. As it is, the sound leaves his throat sounding embarrassingly clipped.

Nureyev tries to say something, Juno hears the breath catch in his throat and die there. Then he feels a hand on his shirt, and then Nureyev’s arm over his torso, and Nureyev presses close to him.

Juno almost starts crying, he’s missed the feeling of Nureyev’s arms on him so much. “Turn around,” he says.

“Pardon?”

“You wanna get comfortable, don’t you?” Juno sounds a little more brusque than he’d like, but if Nureyev hears the sharp edge to his tone, he says nothing about it. Or otherwise, understands it. Juno just hopes he doesn’t misinterpret it.

Nureyev turns so that his back is facing Juno and, after a moment of hesitation, Juno sets an arm over Nureyev’s waist. He lets Nureyev’s back press into his chest, even lets his thigh press against Nureyev’s.

Nureyev breathes very softly under Juno’s arm. Juno can’t smell anything else. He closes his eyes to stop himself from having to acknowledge that this is really something real.

“Thank you,” Nureyev says quietly. He shifts slightly, and his shoulder, bared by the way his shirt falls away from him, brushes against Juno’s lips.

Juno decides not to notice the way Nureyev’s breathing stops for just a moment under his arm. He has no choice but to notice the way his lips buzz slightly. He is struck by the vivid impulse to press forward, to kiss Nureyev’s shoulder, and then his neck, to feel Nureyev’s breath catch again, and then to let him roll onto his back underneath Juno so that he can lean down and kiss Nureyev’s lips, again and again and again. He isn’t sure he’s ever wanted anything so badly.

Nureyev’s hand comes to rest over Juno’s own on the other side of him, and Juno uses the sensation to pull him out of the realm of his treacherous thoughts. He focuses on that feeling until he feels Nureyev’s breathing changes and he knows that he’s asleep.

Juno’s last thought to himself, as he lies in the quiet suspension of possibility, feeling Nureyev breathe against his chest and under his arm, is a simple demand to his own body: _Look. I know we haven__’t had so much of a good relationship over the years, but if you’ve ever given half of a damn about me, I am begging you, please don’t let me wake up hard. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i forgot,,, but the code actually is something it's RITA-IS-THE-PRETTIEST-HACKER and then i forget the last word rip


	3. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay. 
> 
> so basically what happened to me was that i wrote chapter 2, got on a roll, wrote 3000 words of chapter 3 leading directly off of chapter 2, and then got seriously stuck. 
> 
> the thing is that ch3 was not Meant to go directly on from ch2 and so i think my brain can't link the two scenes together properly. i'm very worried about like,, losing motivation to write,, but i don't want to delete what i have written because it's spicy. so to even it out, i'm going to post a bit of what i *did* write just so that i can reset my brain and start with an actually whole new chapter. 
> 
> there's also like,,, probably gonna be a movie night themed chapter at some point so i don't want to spoil the idea. idk if posting this is a good idea or not, i just know i HAVE to get out of this slump or this won't be finished. hope y'all understand!

Juno doesn’t wake up hard. He does wake up alone.

The first thing he feels is the coldness of the bedsheets under his hand and he realises he has been alone for a long while.

The second thing he feels is a stab of loneliness. It arcs down into him, reaching somewhere in his chest, stirring up the warm memory of a moment the night before as it lands. It was when he woke up to find his nose pressed into the junction of Nureyev’s shoulder and back, had smelled his faded cologne, but underneath that, the natural smell of him – something unique and nameless and something Juno had only ever smelt before when Nureyev was over him and holding him and smiling against his temple, in the aftershocks of having pulled Juno apart, while Juno babbled something incoherent about _how the fuck do you do that, Nureyev, how do you touch me like that? – _and felt, for the first time in a very long time, as though he was somewhere safe. He could feel the sweat of his arm on Nureyev’s waist and of their bodies pressing together and he had, selfishly, not done a single thing about it. He had just breathed in that cologne and pressed himself just a little closer to Nureyev and closed his eyes, letting himself fall contentedly back to sleep.

The third thing Juno feels is a guilt that sweeps the bottom of his stomach out from under him. Of course Nureyev had woken up and pried himself out of Juno’s clutching arms — given him a taste of his own medicine. He wondered if Nureyev had pitied him at all, lying there dreaming about waking up beside him, or if he’d just felt a cold, ugly satisfaction at knowing that Juno would know a little bit of how it felt, now.

Juno pulls himself to his feet and fumbles in his drawers until he finds something worth putting on his body. It’s a shirt Rita gave him once — most of his shirts are shirts Rita gave him once — that he hides underneath a turtleneck. He finds a pair of pants that have only _one _suspiciously salmon-smelling stain on the thigh, and pulls them on.

Then he makes his way out into the kitchen of the ship, searching for something to eat.

The other option for the way he could spend his day, of course, would have been for Juno to sit quietly in his bedroom and not move at all. Juno finds that option instantly tempting the moment he walks into the kitchen and sees Nureyev sitting at the kitchen bench.

“Oh,” Juno says, “Morning.”

“Morning, Juno,” Peter says, with quiet disinterest. He’s looking at his comms screen, has one earplug plugged in (Juno knows he only ever listens with one earplug plugged in; part of his whole hypervigilance thing). He’s dressed, too — Juno isn’t quite sure why he half expected to see Nureyev in the same shirt from last night. He probably pried himself out of Juno’s arms and had a shower first thing, disgusted by the lingering feeling of their bodies sweating against each other, and ridding all evidence of their contact as quickly as possible. Juno idly wonders if he’ll ever even see that shirt again.

“Did you… sleep well?” Juno asks conversationally as he can, striding over to the coffee machine to start it up. At least its annoying humming is something of a background noise, drowning out the sound of every unspoken word Juno is trying desperately not to say.

“Quite, thank you,” Nureyev murmurs. Then he blinks up at Juno like he’s seen him for the first time and presses a button on his comms. He pulls out the one earplug and sets it carefully down on the table. “Juno. I should apologise.”

“Don’t,” Juno says quickly, “You were right to leave. I deserved it.”

“I shouldn’t have interrupted you last night with my blubbering,” Nureyev says over the top of him, a determined look on his face. Then he stops himself and looks up at Juno, “Pardon me? What did you say?”

Juno stutters over his words for a good few seconds and watches Nureyev’s eyes go as wide as Rita’s when she sees that Juno’s bought her new snacks and left them on her desk.

“Juno,” he says, his voice very serious, “I didn’t intentionally leave—”

“Okay, my bad, we don’t have to talk about it,” Juno says, very quickly. He’s distantly aware of the sound of the coffee machine rumbling, but it’s only when Peter shouts that he turns to see his coffee mug at the verge of pouring over.

Juno rushes for the mug and pulls it out of the way of the stream of coffee, turning the machine off. _Stupid, stupid dumb stupid idiot dumb—_

“I…” Peter says, carefully, when Juno turns back around awkwardly to look at him, “Left you this morning because I thought you’d rather not have the whole crew find out I was in your quarters. I—” he says, and then cuts himself off. After a moment, he continues, very quietly, “Wasn’t sure if you would show me quite the same hospitality after a proper rest restored your wits,” he admits.

Juno feels the last part hit him like an attack he’s too shell-shocked to defend. He manages to put one sugar in his coffee and pick it up, putting it down on the bench across from Peter, “You… thought I didn’t want you with me?”

Peter’s breath hesitates. Juno can hear it from across the bench.

“I supposed that, perhaps, I had taken advantage of your sleep-deprived state. That and your compassion – you weren’t about to kick out a man in… whatever emotional configuration I found myself in last night. I hardly imagine, Juno, that you’re in a place to invite me into your quarters simply because I ask—”

“Always,” Juno says. The firmness in his own voice surprises him — it surprises Nureyev, too, by the way he blinks up at Juno in silence. Juno forces himself to form a coherent sentence despite the way Nureyev pins him in place with that look, “You are always welcome. No matter if you’re feeling anxious, or upset, or just—” he hesitates over the last word, “Lonely. All you have to do is knock.”

Nureyev smiles at him softly, “That’s very kind of you to say.”

Nureyev is perfect at faking a genuine smile. That’s what gives it away. The smile he gives Juno is just a little too ‘exactly what he wanted to see’, which means Nureyev doesn’t believe him. It makes Juno mad.

“Last night was—” Juno hears himself say, and only barely stops himself before he says something extremely idiotic like _the best night I__’ve had in a long while_, or even worse, _the most at home I’ve felt in years. _Instead, he takes a breath, and says, “Nice. Good. I… don’t get many people who are willing to let me touch them like that.”

Okay, strange phrasing, but Peter only smiles fondly at him, more genuinely, which is good. “Neither do I.”

“Right,” Juno says, “So you can absolutely see why it’s not a problem for me. It… helps keep the nightmares away from me, too, you know.”

Peter physically softens. Juno sees it — his straight-backedness, the rigidness in his shoulders that Juno hadn’t even realised was there a second ago smooths out of him. His face relaxes, too, and he offers Juno a smile. An honest one. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Then he reaches his hand across the table to place it over Juno’s, “Thank you, Juno. Honestly. It feels a little stupid, but… in a very real way, you know, you’re the only person in the galaxy I can talk to.”

Juno smiles at him, “Not sure how helpful I can be. Don’t think much talking through things happened last night, that I recall.”

“Perhaps not with our words, no,” Nureyev says, and takes his hand from Juno’s.

Juno doesn’t have time to unpack all of that. The weight of Nureyev so casually tossing the responsibility of being the only person he could turn to on him had only just landed when Nureyev insouciantly threw on the added bonus of some secret conversation they’d had with their actions that Juno was absolutely not privy to.

Juno is reminded of the way he used to feel by Nureyev’s side; like he was running to catch up with someone who was intellectually far ahead of him and always would be. He tries not to let it pull his arms in closer to his chest and make him snap – he knows he’s working on baring insecurities to the light in the hope that they’ll dry out rather than stay nestled deep inside of him and continue to rot. So he breathes in, reminds himself that Nureyev talks eloquently but that Juno has one of the sharpest instincts in Sol, that he’s impressed Nureyev before, saved them both, even, and breathes out.

“Now,” Nureyev, entirely oblivious to Juno’s inner crisis, leans back and picks up the one earplug, putting it into his ear, “If you don’t mind me, I’m watching streams in preparation for my marathon with Rita tonight.”

Juno's shoulders slump, "Your what?"


	4. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [rubs my gay little hands together]

"No!”

Juno hears ringing in his ears. It feels like it reverberates in his skull, spreads through each bone in his body and out into his flesh. He knows what a stun-blast feels like, by now, maybe too well, even, but it fucks him up the same every time.

He has enough feeling left to feel the way his knees slam down against the metal of the loading bay they’re trying to escape through. By the time his shoulder hits the ground, though, his mind is already painfully fuzzy and his vision is going black.

Juno wakes up with bright lights in his eyes and swears. Multiple times.

The lights dim suddenly, and Juno hears the shuffling footsteps of somebody else in the room. Or thinks he does. Light footsteps. _Benzaiten? _he thinks. His head is splitting. He can’t remember much about where he is, but he figures he must have overdosed. Again. _Mick. Rita. _

The bed he’s lying in lifts suddenly, so that Juno is sitting upright, and he tries to look around to see which of the names surfacing in his mind is with him. There’s spots in his vision, though, and when he turns his neck something hits him – a wave of pins and needles – and he finds himself paralysed, his head falling uselessly back to the bed behind him.

_Stun blast_, he thinks.

“Don’t move, Juno, you’re going to be disoriented for quite some time.”

“Oh, fuck,” Juno hears himself say. “Nureyev.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath, then a wet cloth on his forehead. Juno’s spotty vision makes out a sharp jaw. “You’re very lucky we’re alone.”

Juno frowns. Bright lights; Nureyev with him; feeling like he’s just recently been stunned. Miasma? Is that now? Or was that… no, that was a while ago.

A glass is pressed to his lips. “Drink,” comes the command, and Juno does, too out of it to put up his regular fight. Nureyev doesn’t sound concerned. He sounds pissed, and that worries Juno. What did he do?

_Oh, _Juno thinks, _Left him. _The glass is taken from his lips and Juno shuffles, “Sorry,” he hears himself slur, “Sorry, sorry.”

There’s no response for a moment. Then Nureyev says, “Hold still,” and Juno shouts as Nureyev grabs hold of his arm tightly and injects him with something.

“That’ll clean you up,” Nureyev says. He hears his foot tapping against the ground, and then Nureyev sighs, “I’ll be back when your head is clear enough to talk.”

Juno only hears Nureyev’s light footsteps receding in the background of his mind, under the stinging sensation on his arm and the fuzzy feeling in his mind. Why are he and Nureyev alone together in—wherever they are—and when did Juno get…

Juno suddenly feels his stomach sink. There’s no memory attached to the feeling, but it doesn’t quite make Juno feel good about whatever memories are fast approaching. He blinks to try and clear his vision, get a sense of where he is to coax memories forward. Best to get them back as soon as possible so that he can deal with their aftermath.

He’s in a room that he vaguely recognises. It’s white and clean but, as he looks closer, not by any standard _up to code, _with cracks and stains. Across the room is a whiteboard with photos printed out and scrawled handwriting with notes under each one. He recognises Rita and some of the writing (Age: ??? Note: infuriating). His list has the longest number of dot-points; he makes out ‘eye’ and ‘atrocious diet’ and ‘MDD? potential PTSD’, and wonders when exactly Vespa was going to end up telling him about any of this bullshit. There’s something under Peter’s photo, too, but Juno can’t make anything out past the words ‘kleptomaniac’, ‘compulsive liar’, and ‘bad idea’.

_Carte Blanche, _Juno thinks, and then it all comes back to him.

They’d been on a heist, of course, (when were they not). They had just been making their escape when a stray, bored security officer had wandered off of their set path and into the loading bay to raid their stash. Nureyev had been going to take them on, and would have been more than capable to do so.

The security guard had fired. Juno had jumped in the way. Instinct. Stupid, fucking instinct.

Juno closes his eyes and wishes he could sink through the cot he’s in, through the metal floor, and out into the void of space.

As usual, what brings Juno back from his wallowing is his curiosity. He wants to know how he got here, why Nureyev is with him, why they are, if he hadn’t hallucinated Nureyev saying it, alone. He doesn’t have to wait long; within five minutes, Nureyev is walking into the room.

His face is set. He sits on the end of Juno’s cot and just looks at him.

“Hi,” Juno says, after a moment. “How long have I been out?”

“Long enough,” Nureyev says. He folds his arms across his chest and looks away from him. “That was very irresponsible of you, Juno.”

Juno grunts and tries to get purchase against the sheets, sitting back straighter against the pillow at his back, “Doing fine, thanks for asking. I mean, still not sure if I can move, and I saved your life, but that’s just normal, you know.”

Nureyev scoffs, “Saved my life? Is that what you call recklessly throwing yourself in the path of danger? You had no way of telling if that blaster was on stun, and you _know _I could’ve avoided it from where I was in the room.”

Juno feels sick. He’s too fucked up to think about this right now, but it doesn’t look like Nureyev is going to let him go if he asks to take a nap first. “So I’m taking it you’re not about to fall into my arms and call me your hero?”

“I thought you were past this.”

Two words to describe Peter Nureyev: precise, and sharp. Juno feels both of these things now; feels an incision right through his protective skin precisely into where it hurts the most. Juno physically flinches, “Wow. Taking no prisoners today, huh?”

“You promised me,” Nureyev stands up off the end of Juno’s bed. “You told me you were getting better. That you wouldn’t treat yourself so worthlessly anymore.”

Juno feels like he’s bleeding. He hears himself laugh weakly, “Stop it, Nureyev…”

“No,” Nureyev steps closer. His voice shakes when he speaks. He’s so angry, there’s a flush on his cheeks, and Juno feels a sudden, instinctive pang of fear. “You can’t just _throw _yourself towards death like a selfish _coward_. Not when you promised your friends – do you have any idea what a state Rita was in? She thought you’d—and so did I,” Nureyev breaks off, and looks away across the room. He breathes in, then turns back, merciless, “I forgave you for leaving because you promised me you’d seen the error in your ways. If I’d have known you would get back on your feet just to hurl yourself back into harm’s way, I never would’ve—”

Which is the point that Juno starts crying. They’re ugly, heavy sobs. He feels like his body is collapsing in on itself, crumbling away and dissolving. “Stop it,” he manages; he reminds himself of when he was a kid, weak and defenceless against his mother’s verbal attacks, reduced to sobbing and repeating the same words. “Stop it, stop it.”

“Juno,” Nureyev breathes, and through blurry vision Juno can see that his body language has entirely changed. Somehow that only makes Juno feel worse; all he’s good at is making people feel worried, sucking their pity out of them and using it to justify his destructive behaviour.

Then Nureyev’s arms are around him, and Juno is helpless to do anything but cry it all out. They’re on an uncomfortable angle, Nureyev bending down to get his arms around Juno’s waist, but they make do. Juno buries his head into the shoulder he shouldn’t have to cry on, and gets his arms around Nureyev’s skinny back to pull him as close as he can.

“I’m so sorry,” Nureyev turns his head into Juno’s hair. “Juno, I’m so sorry. I was so worried, I didn’t mean…”

“It’s okay,” Juno forces out, between hitching breaths that shake his whole body, “You’re right. You’re right.”

“No,” Nureyev says forcefully, “No, no.” He presses Juno back into the bed and holds him there, “Listen to me, Juno. I’m just an idiot. I was used to dealing with the older version of you, had it in my head you wouldn’t listen unless I forced it into you. I was just so worried. I’m so sorry—”

Juno breathes life into the thought that’s been bouncing in his head since he got his memories back. “What if it’s a relapse?” he breathes into Nureyev’s shirt. His breath hitches again and he squeezes his eyes shut, “Nureyev, I’m not strong enough. If things go back to the way they were, I can’t—”

“Shh, shh,” Nureyev pushes Juno back so he can lean over him, looking at him. It’s worse, being faced with him and having his arms empty, and Peter seems to sense it, because after a moment he makes a soft sound and leans back down into Juno’s arms. “You won’t go back to how things were,” Nureyev says, with quiet emphasis, “You know how I know?”

Juno spares him a dry laugh, feeling like a child in the aftermath of a nightmare, “How do you know, Nureyev?”

“Because you’re Juno Steel,” Nureyev says, and then smiles softly, _fondly_, “And you are remarkably capable, and determined, and brave. And you are surrounded by people who love you. Rita, and Buddy, and Jet, and Vespa in her own way. And… me. Unconditionally.”

Juno knows he doesn’t mean it in the way he wants him to. It doesn’t even bother him; now is not the time. He aches with warmth anyway, that he has Nureyev’s love in any way, that he has this new life with these people he loves back, with all his heart.

“I’m sorry,” Juno whispers.

“_I’m _sorry,” Nureyev nuzzles his head into Juno’s neck, “I was just so scared. It doesn’t excuse what I said. Juno,” Nureyev leans back, “You know I’d never mean any of that.”

He’s waiting for Juno to confirm. Juno tries to believe it, tries to search for the trust he has in Nureyev. The warmth is there, it rises for a moment, somewhere deep in Juno’s gut. But it fades again, replaced by the memory of Nureyev’s face, the way his words made him feel. Now Nureyev is peering at him, his eyebrows knitted together, and Juno has already made him worry so much. So he smiles as honestly as he can fake, and says, “Yeah… yeah, Nureyev, I know.”

If Nureyev can tell he’s lying, it’s obviously overshadowed by the vast relief that sweeps him. He sighs and closes his eyes for a moment. “Good. Good.”

“I… think I’m getting tired,” Juno lies, “Residual from the… blast.”

“Of course,” Nureyev says, and stares at Juno for a moment. Then he sighs again, leans down to hug him again. “I’m proud of you, Juno, I hope you know that. Every time I look at you, I am so, so proud. Ups and downs are part of recovery. I’m sorry I let my fear blind me to that momentarily.”

He leans up, his hand brushing over the side of Juno’s face, and then he leans down. Juno feels the press of his lips against Juno’s cheek. He kisses him there, leaving his lips lingering for just a moment too long before he leans back up. “Rest,” he says. “The rest of the crew won’t be back for a few hours, they made me stay with you because I’m the only other one on the team who knows how to deal with a stun blast.”

He leaves Juno there, and Juno has this absurd phantom feeling against his cheek of Nureyev’s lips. He traces his fingers of the spot, trying to figure out if he left a lipstick stain against his skin.

It doesn’t mean anything. He knows Nureyev can be liberal with his displays of affection, hell, just the other day he saw Peter swoop down and kiss Rita in exactly the same spot as thanks for putting little braids in his hair, leaving Rita red-faced and giggling dreamily for the next half an hour.

God, if he’d known how much harder it would be to be friends with Peter, he would’ve stayed enemies. At least the Peter Ransom Juno stole the Gilded Globe of Reaches Far with wouldn’t have cared about him so much.

Juno resolves to stay awake and reflect on every emotion tumbling around him right now, try and make sense of his feelings and make sense of which feelings he should be feeling and which he shouldn’t.

He wakes up with a start some time later to Nureyev’s hand on the side of his face.

“It’s only me,” Nureyev says when Juno flinches, and the moment he relaxes, a wave of pain courses through Juno’s body.

He groans and Nureyev puts something down on the table beside his cot, turning to him, “Are you okay? Where are you hurting?”

“Every-fucking-where,” Juno groans, and tries to sit up straight, “_Fuck_, those blasts don’t get nicer with age.”

“I brought you some food,” Nureyev says quietly, and gestures to the table, upon which Juno sees a little black tray with a bowl of some kind of soup. “It’s, uh, only reheated. Vespa tells me I’m not ‘fit to be trusted with anybody’s intestines’ apparently, which I feel is a _little _harsh, I’ve hardly poisoned anyone with my cooking before. Well. Not unless I meant—you know? Never mind.”

He’s nervous, Juno realises, as Nureyev rambles. Nureyev looks back at him, and then sighs softly, pulling out a chair and sitting down beside Juno’s cot. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a piece of string, threading it aimlessly between his fingers.

“You know, I…” he starts, and then cuts himself off. He shrugs one shoulder, “All the fantasy aside, the—the man of romance I like to think myself, I’ve really come to learn that I’m not very good at looking after people.”

“Join the club,” Juno mutters.

“But that’s where you’re wrong,” Nureyev turns to look at him. “Juno, the kindness you’ve shown me recently, in the face of my… emotional immaturity. The other night, when you let me stay in your bed, just because of a few silly thoughts… you may not like to think it, but when it comes to reading other people, Juno, you have a fluency I can only imitate.”

“This is all a very roundabout way to say,” Peter continues, glancing up at him for a moment, “That I’ve never… cared for someone before, in quite the same way. Through a process of recovery, like this, with you. And I’m afraid I’m doing a terrible job. I mean, tearing into you…” he puts his head in his hands. He makes a sound that could be a laugh, could be a sob. “What was I thinking…?”

“Hey,” Juno says. He reaches out to put a hand on Nureyev’s shoulder, though it shoots pain up his whole arm and into his spine.

Nureyev looks up at him.

Juno leans back on the bed, “It’s not like I don’t know what that’s like,” he says. “Snapping out of concern. I mean, that’s, like, ninety percent of how I used to communicate. I worried you. That’s okay—”

“And I was only thinking of myself,” Nureyev insists. He stands up from his chair, leaning over Juno, “I didn’t pause for a single moment to consider the intricacies of such an action, only foolishly resorted to letting my own fear of losing you translate into blame.”

“I think we’re both familiar with letting our fear of losing each other lead to regrettable actions, at this point,” Juno says softly.

Nureyev hesitates. Then he offers him a small smile, and laughs, looking away, “Look at me. I make you cry, and then come back begging for _your_ comfort. God,” he looks at the roof and laughs again. “Idiot. Stupid, selfish, foolish idiot.”

“Hey,” Juno reaches up to grab Nureyev’s shoulder and pull him downwards, “I won’t have anybody saying things like that about someone I love.”

Nureyev looks down at him and they get frozen there. It dawns on Juno that it’s the first time those words have left his mouth in a long, long time. Nureyev has a history of blatant displays of affection that makes his affection towards Juno comfortably ambiguous, and well within the realm of appropriate. Juno doesn’t have the same kind of background, and he feels his words stand out as stark as the tusks on a sewer-rabbit.

Then Nureyev’s face softens, and he leans forward to bury his head into Juno’s neck again. “Thank you,” he mutters, and _fuck_.

Juno turns his head and kisses the side of Nureyev’s hair. Nureyev does nothing to acknowledge this, except for to turn his head marginally more into Juno’s neck. Juno’s not even sure he felt it at all. His heart races.

“I’m glad you’re a mess, too,” Juno says, to break the tension, “It makes feel a lot better about fucking up.”

Nureyev laughs. When he leans back, Juno isn’t sure if he imagines the gloss to his eyes. He puts his forehead to Juno’s and closes his eyes.

“I believe you,” Juno says, and feels a deep sense of peace in knowing that he’s not lying, for once, “I know you didn’t mean it. But it hurt.”

“I know,” Nureyev says, “I was trying to hurt you. It was wrong of me. I was trying to frighten you into being safe, trying to make you feel what I felt, waiting for you to wake up.”

“I’m sorry,” Juno whispers. Nureyev shakes his head slightly against Juno’s, and opens his eyes.

In any one of Rita’s streams, this is the moment where Juno would surge forward and kiss him. It would be so easy, too – all he’d need is to put his hand around the back of Nureyev’s neck and hold him there while he leaned forward. And Nureyev would kiss him back, and maybe Juno could coax him into replacing some of the pain in his body with something better.

It would be easy, but there’s a kind of emotional intimacy to this moment that feels so much deeper than what a kiss can allow. It’s a perfect moment, and Juno finds it would suit better to be pinched off here.

“Thanks for the soup,” he says quietly, and Nureyev laughs.


	5. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL here's the news
> 
> ive decided that this fic is now a 4 times 1 time. i have 2 reasons for this: a good reason, and the true reason.
> 
> the good reason:  
\-- for real, i just don't think i can squeeze another chapter out. there's only so many times you can almost kiss your ex before it becomes obvious that Something's Up.  
\-- i'm leaving on family holidays and will basically be out of internet service from the 22nd until january, so i want to wrap this up before i leave!  
\-- i also really need to start focusing on my minibang fic!
> 
> the true reason:  
\-- im lazy  
\-- i........ like this chapter.........don wanna wrigte another one
> 
> i havent re-read or editited this at all! im constantly stuck between wanting to seriously improve my writing and wanting to publish the moment i write it in order to cause myself the least possible amount of effort LMAO. i wrote over half of this in a car while feeling sick soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
> 
> also check out my other last 2 fics they flopped a bit 🥺
> 
> also: 
> 
> me: [pushes my anti-corporation agenda through buddy]

“Settle round, everyone, if we want this to be wrapped up by morning we’ll need to start now.”

“I’m surprised you’d even spend money on Monopoly,” Juno walks around and picks a cushion off of the couch, throwing it on the floor and settling down on it, “After the first company went broke after their involvement in the war on Pluto was exposed, and the Bezos family took over it, and then Earth decided that, you know, slavery was bad, and executed all of Bezos’s line, but only so that the Yen family, who turned out to be just as corrupt, could start selling games of Monopoly with subliminal fascist messaging in it, I thought nobody played anymore.”

“I didn’t pay for this set, darling,” Buddy says, siting down on the couch opposite the coffee table.

“You stole it?”

Buddy smiles and puts one leg over the other, “I don’t consider it stealing if you can’t ethically justify spending money on the product.”

“That… makes a lot of sense, actually,” Juno says.

“Well. It’s what we thieves tell ourselves to make us feel better,” Peter says. He sits down on a cushion next to Juno.

Vespa starts dealing the money, sitting next to Buddy on the couch. Jet is on a second couch, at a kind of diagonal angle to the first one – there’s a spot for Rita beside him – and Peter and Juno are on the floor.

“You might use it to ease your conscience, Ransom darling, but for me it’s a principle,” Buddy begins sorting her piles of money. Juno thinks he sees a 500 cred bill disappear into her sleeve.

“Oh,” he realises out loud, “You’re all going to cheat, aren’t you?”

“Naturally, dear,” Peter mutters, straightening his pile of money. Juno doesn’t see any of it go missing but he’s sure it does. “Half of the game is fooling your opponents.”

“It really isn’t.”

“Where are our drinks?” Buddy asks, at the same moment as Rita walks into the room.

“I hope you all are thirsty!” she says, backing into the room with a tray full of plastic cocktail glasses. She must have picked them up during their shopping trip earlier this week; they’re garishly coloured and each has a silly straw. “It’s the Rita Special, and it’s gonna blow your brains out.”

She places a different glass at each spot. Juno gets a purple one, Peter pink, Vespa green, Buddy red, Jet blue, and Rita yellow. Juno takes a sip through a pink straw with two loop-de-loops in it. It tastes sickly sweet, fruity underneath a chemical burn. If Juno wasn’t used to Rita’s ‘cocktails’, he’d probably spit it out.

As it is, he says, “_Fuck _that’s strong. What the hell is _in _this, Rita?”

“Mango flavourin’, boss!” Rita chirps happily, “So alright. When are we starting the game?”

Monopoly ends abruptly an hour later when Juno gets caught trying to slip a 20 cred bill up his dress and has to pay the $400 ‘bad at thieving’ fee. “God fucking damnit,” he says, and flops back onto the floor, “Fuck this game, fuck you thieves, and especially fuck Waterworks road. What the fuck even is a Waterwork?”

“How about blackjack?” Peter suggests, and Juno sits back up.

“Oh, hell yeah. Now _that’s _a game I can play.”

“I’ll refill the glasses!” Rita says, and bounces off to the kitchen before anybody can beg her not to.

“We betting with real money?” Juno asks Buddy, and she shakes her head.

“We can use Monopoly money. The lucky thief with the most at the end is excused from chores for a week. Jet, dear, go get the deck of cards, would you?”

In a moment, Rita returns with the drinks and Jet returns with the cards. They begin playing. For several rounds, it seems like Vespa’s in the lead, but slowly the tide turns back towards Juno. Peter is sorely losing, and suddenly he makes a dramatic groan and says, “I’m going all in.”

Buddy raises her eyebrow at the others, “Are you all alright with that?”

Juno shrugs and pushes his pile of Monopoly money into the middle of the table. Slowly, the rest of the group does the same. Peter taps a tune into the table, uncharacteristically relaxed-looking, and suddenly Juno realises something.

It’s confirmed when the game begins. Peter gets a card, and his face lights up. He giggles, actually giggles, and tucks the card into his hand.

Juno looks at him, “Holy hell. You’re drunk.”

“Am not,” Nureyev says severely, and then takes a long sip out of a zig-zagging blue straw.

It’s not like Juno’s not also buzzed, but he’s used to drinking a lot more than this whereas Peter usually buys the kind of fruity, watered-down fancy cocktails Juno avoids at all costs. He has, Juno realises, no tolerance for alcohol.

“Hit me,” Nureyev says, and Buddy gives him a card. Peter looks at it, and then smiles, “Ah. I’ll win this round, or my name isn’t—”

He pauses then, then frowns, then laughs, “You know, I’ve quite forgotten what my name is meant to be.”

“Jesus Christ,” Juno says.

“I’ll stand,” Vespa says, and so does Jet, and because Jet does Rita does as well.

“Hit me,” Juno says. Buddy hands him a card and he looks at it impassively, “Hit me.”

Nureyev snorts, “You know, taking more cards when you’ve already gone bust is a scare tactic that I’m entirely aware of, and _not _going to fall for. I’ll stand.”

“I’ll stand, too,” Juno says.

“Alright,” Buddy says, and turns over her cards. She goes bust, as does the rest of the crew.

Nureyev makes a sound of triumph and puts down his cards, “Twenty-one, exactly!” he crows.

Juno puts down his cards quietly, and leans back.

“Mistah Steel, that ain’t twenty-one,” Rita peers over to read his cards. “That’s... five and three and a two and four and six… That’s twenty, boss.”

“Yeah, in five cards,” Juno says, pointing, “Five and under rule. I win.”

“That ain’t even a rule!”

“Yes it is, dear,” Buddy says, and turns to look at Nureyev, “Well, Ransom?”

“Mm,” Nureyev looks at Juno’s cards, and then sighs, leaning his head in his arms on the game table, “One step ahead of me. You always have been, though, Juno, since the day we met. Do you remember how we met, Juno? You were so handsome.” He reaches for his drink.

Juno blinks, “Um. Okay, _Ransom_, I think…” he reaches over to take Nureyev’s glass before he can take another sip, “You’ve had enough of Rita’s cocktails today.”

“You’re right. Always right, Juno. I haven’t been this drunk since…” Nureyev sits up and his head lolls for a moment, “Since I got kicked out of the spaceport bar, the day after you left me.”

Silence spills into the room. This is the first the rest of the Carte Blanche have heard of the history between the two of them, and the rest of the crew seem painfully aware that they’ve stumbled onto grounds they have no place to be in.

“I… didn’t know about that,” Juno says, too stunned to stop himself. It might be the buzz loosening his mouth or slowing down his thinking so he doesn’t have time to process what Nureyev has just said, but he doesn’t think quick enough to stop him.

“No, I didn’t say. I thought it would be irrelevant once we’d apologised to each other. Apologising is a funny thing, isn’t it?” Peter turns to look at him, “We act like saying sorry means all the feelings will up and go away. But I missed you before we apologised, Juno, and I miss you terribly still.”

Juno’s mouth opens and shuts.

“You know, I’ve just remembered that there’s some washing left in the kitchen sink,” Buddy stands up slowly, making just enough of a show of it that Juno knows some drama-loving part of her is drinking this up, “And since Juno is exempt from cleaning duty, I suppose Vespa and I will take over. Come along, Vespa.”

“I…I’m gonna go clean up from my cocktails,” Rita rambles, more nervous, probably because she knows Juno’s track record with romance and wants to leave before the punches fly. She scoops around the table, grabbing all their glasses, and disappears into the kitchen.

Jet stays put. Juno pays him no mind.

“Ransom—”

“Don’t call me that. I’ve told you what to call me, Juno,” Nureyev rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, “If you’re not going to use my name, there’s no point’n me having told you it.”

Juno sighs, “Look,” he says, and then he stops. He stops because the only thing on his mind to ask is _do you mean it? _It would be easy enough. Pretend he’s a little drunker than he really is and spill his guts to Nureyev, tell him how badly he’s missed him back, how badly he wants him still. And then…

Then? Then, what? They sober up and Nureyev has to tell Juno he’s not in a place for a relationship right now, that the attraction between them is mutual but distracting, that there’s no time for the two of them to devote to each other amongst all this chaos. That’s the best case scenario. Worst? They wake up in bed together, Juno with guilt like hot salt on his tongue and Nureyev unable to look him in the eye.

And Juno knows Nureyev, maybe better than anyone in the damn universe. He knows Nureyev is attracted to him still, sure, but the two of them are adults, well past the stage in their lives where they thought that attraction alone made chasing a relationship worth it. So he knows Nureyev wouldn’t say any of this sober, which means the person saying it now isn’t being honest, and Juno can’t live with stealing false praises just to feel like he isn’t a complete and total fuck-up.

He’s stayed silent too long. Nureyev puts his hand on Juno’s thigh.

“You’re wondering if I mean it,” he says softly. He leans forward, and Juno is so entranced by him, even like this. “I mean it, Juno,” he says. Juno can almost taste the mango on his breath.

Juno knows it’s about to happen a second before it does. Nureyev surges forward to kiss him, and Juno leans back. “Ransom,” he breathes.

Peter glares. It makes him look more like he’s about to start crying than snap, and his voice shakes when he says, “I told you to call me N—”

“This situation is unbearably awkward to observe,” Jet announces, right over the top of Nureyev, “I am leaving the room.”

The couch creaks as he stands up and ambles out of the room. Nureyev and Juno watch him go, and then Juno sighs, “Let’s get you to bed, Nureyev.”

“Yes,” Nureyev mumbles sadly, “I suppose that is the right thing to do.”

Nureyev wobbles in his heels, and Juno can’t help himself but make fun of him until he groans and stops in the hallway to kick off his shoes. “I’m not that drunk,” he insists, despite being drunk enough that he sounds like he’s got a mouthful of salmon chips when he says it.

“Sure,” Juno teases him lightly, “You’re leaning half your weight on me, but sure.”

Nureyev’s response is a snort, and he leans down to press his head in Juno’s shoulder.

“Don’t make me bridal carry you,” Juno mumbles, shoving him away.

Nureyev giggles, and before he knows it, Juno chuckles too, hit by the sudden vivid image of all Nureyev’s spindly limbs spilling out of Juno’s arms.

“We should do this more often,” Nureyev says.

“Get drunk together?”

“Mmm. It’s so much nicer not having to…” Nureyev waves an elegant hand with poor aim, “Worry about what to say around you.”

Juno looks away from him and shoves his hands into his pockets. _You do that often? _he wants to ask, is desperate to know, but instead he only says, “You’re gonna have a lot of fun when you wake up and remember this, then.”

“Ugh,” Nureyev groans, and then his arms wrap around Juno’s neck. He buries his head into Juno’s shoulder again, almost throwing Juno entirely off balance.

“Wo-ah, someone’s a clingy drunk, huh?” Juno turns a corner towards Nureyev’s room. “Don’t knock me over.”

Nureyev mumbles something into Juno’s shoulder which could be Brahmese and could be drunken nonsense, and Juno pulls him, stumbling, into his room.

“Thank you, darling,” Nureyev slurs. He pats his shoulder, takes one step, and trips over into his bed.

“God, you’re useless,” Juno sits down on the bed beside him, “You need me to help you get dressed, Nureyev, or are you a big enough boy to do that yourself?”

“You propositioning me, Juno?” Nureyev lifts himself up on one arm and attempts a sultry look. Juno pushes him over with one hand.

“When you’re drunk? You really take me for a scumbag, don’t you?”

Nureyev makes a wounded look, “Juno… That’s not what I meant.”

He looks like he’s going to cry again, so Juno sighs and flops down on the bed beside him, "Only joking."

Nureyev puts a hand on his chest. “Stay,” he says.

Juno rolls to look at him, “I can’t, Nureyev. Trust me, you are _not _going to want to wake up next to me. Not this time.”

“Not for sex,” Nureyev insists, although Juno hadn’t even been thinking that far, “Just…” Nureyev says, and shrugs, “For company.” His expression wobbles and his eyes gloss over, “To stop me feeling lonely. You know, I never felt lonely until I knew what it was like not to be.”

“Fuck,” Juno breathes, “Did I do that to you?”

Nureyev laughs softly and rolls onto his back, “Oh, Juno. What _didn’t _you do to me?”

It feels like he’s being tortured, lying helplessly captive while Nureyev slurs out shards that speak to a much larger broken heart beneath the surface. Because Nureyev had been right – apologising was meant to sweep up all the pieces and brush them gently away, but Juno still feels stabbed when Nureyev looks at him, still bleeds open around the guilt and longing embedded into his chest.

The issue is this: they’ve never talked about it. Not directly. Juno’s too scared of peeling back the blanket they’ve thrown over the mess they’ve made and see how much worse it’s got, and he has a feeling Nureyev is the same.

But Juno has other things. He has Rita, who he’s slowly learning to let in so they can clean his wounds together. He has himself, a companion he largely ignored was there until he realised that keeping himself out of his own business was killing him. Nureyev?

No friends, no home, hardly even a sense of self. Who does Nureyev have?

Only Juno.

“Nureyev,” Juno says softly, and turns to look at him.

Nureyev doesn’t look back. He doesn’t look anywhere at all; his face is pressed into the blankets and he’s breathing softly, fast asleep.

His long lashes are shut against his cheeks, soft granules of pink-red on his eyelids and perfect black lining them, ending in sharp tips. He’s hanging half off the bed still, all long limbs and ruffled clothes. He’s beautiful. Juno… doesn’t love him, couldn’t – they barely know each other – but…

It’s more than mutual attraction. And the least Juno owes him is closure.

Juno sighs and stands up from Nureyev’s bed. He pulls back the covers and then walks back over to Nureyev’s side.

He looks at him for a moment. Then he leans down and scoops him up.

“Mm?” Nureyev’s head lolls and comes to rest against Juno’s neck. Juno tries not to let the sensation get to him, only walks around the other side of the bed so he can lay Nureyev down.

Nureyev yawns, “Juno?” he mumbles sleepily. “Are you staying?”

He can’t answer yet. Juno distracts himself with pulling up Nureyev’s blankets and tucking him in. “No,” he says, brushing a hand over Peter’s forehead to clear the hair sticking there. “I… meant what I said. I think you’re gonna need some time when you wake up. But…”

Juno’s hands linger for a moment. “Come and find me,” he says. “We can talk. About everything. I think we both deserve that.”

He’s not sure if Nureyev hears him, let alone remembers. Juno leans down and kisses his forehead.

Nureyev hums contentedly, and rolls over in his bed. “G’night, dear.”

“Yeah,” Juno says. “Good night.”


	6. Plus One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they talk about it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is just so damn full of [clenches fist] communication. thanks 2 the minibang discord for inspiring some kiss headcanons that i ate up. this will probably be the last thing i post in a while because i need to focus on my minibang fic YIKES. also im in the car rn and we're literally passing the town of yass if any of yall saw that queer eye ep
> 
> ART BY CECIL BLUEJORTS WHOM I LOVE READ HIS FICS THEYRE GOOD

Juno wakes up to the sound of a series of soft knocks at his door. They’re short and precise enough for Juno to know who it is, and light and hesitant enough for Juno to remember why he’s here.

Juno gets out of bed so fast he almost trips over the blankets, and calls out, “I’m up, I’m up! Come in.”

After a moment’s further hesitation, the door slides open. Nureyev takes a step into Juno’s room and then looks violently to the wall. “You should’ve told me you weren’t decent. I would’ve waited.”

Juno snorts and holds his arms out, a silent _nothing you haven’t seen before _gesture_, _but Nureyev seems intent on staring away, and Juno stops. Nureyev’s fingers are clutching tight but fluttering at his upper arms, his eyes darting up and around the areas of Juno’s room that Juno isn’t in.

Like he’s about to disappear. Juno realises now is not the time to be casual.

“What do you think? Is this a skirt kind of day or a shorts kind of day?” Juno says anyway, while pulling his boxers on, because he’s never been very good at letting his thoughts and his mouth match up. He cringes to himself.

“Hm?” Nureyev glances at him, a small frown creasing his forehead, and then glances away, “Wear what you like.”

“Right,” Juno mutters, and reaches for the nearest items of clothing, which end up being a pair of light pink and loose cotton shorts and a very, _very _faded light grey HCPD Academy shirt.

There’s silence in the room apart from the tap-tap-tap of Nureyev’s heel against the floor as Juno pulls on his clothes. Juno’s mind races for what to say.

“Maybe now is not the time,” Nureyev says suddenly, his words sounding hand-picked, as though he’d glanced over each one of them to ensure no possible hidden meanings littered their skin like bruises on fruit before breathing life into them, and Juno spins around in time to see him making for the door.

“Don’t go,” he says. It leaves him strained and pleading. There’s a thousand hidden meanings behind saying those two words in just that way but Juno and bruises go way back, so he supposes some things can’t be helped.

Nureyev flutters in the doorway, hesitating. After a moment, he turns.

Juno feels an irrational pang – or maybe it’s not irrational – of embarrassment when he faces Nureyev properly. He’s wearing something Juno’s never seen before, a very thin shirt in a watercolour kind of pattern, all blue-white-pink in splotches that run into each other. It has long sleeves which become violently deeper at the ends so they drape elegantly off of his arms like the petals of flowers. He has high-waisted pants on and his makeup is done far better than his usual around-the-ship look, in the same colour scheme. Juno, standing there facing him in the clothes of someone who gave up in themselves long ago and feels too old now to catch up on what he’s missed out on, feels aggressively inadequate.

He’s waiting for Juno to say something. Juno clears his throat and turns to close his drawers.

“We should talk,” Juno says to the mirror, and then curses himself and turns at least his head to look at Nureyev.

“I have no idea what there is to talk about,” Nureyev says quickly. He walks over with graceful steps and leans his hip against Juno’s dresser.

“I think we both know—”

“I was drunk last night,” Nureyev talks over the top of him, and Juno manages to fight down a sarcastic look at the fact that he clearly does have an idea of something that needs talking about. “What I said was—regrettable, and not an honest reflection of how I feel. Pitiful, really. We should just forget the whole thing happened.”

Juno nods his head slowly, if only just to force Nureyev a chance to slow down. With an equal slowness, he turns so that he’s also leaning against the dresser. He feels a little uncertain, on unfamiliar grounds, so his words come out nursed and close to his chest, ready for quick retraction if need be, “Is it really not how you feel?”

Juno sees it, and the moment he does, he feels himself relax. Nureyev’s shoulders loosen, his lips part, and Juno knows he’s broken through that icy barrier Nureyev is so quick to put up. It makes him feel a second-hand wave of stupidity for his embarrassment earlier: Nureyev’s fashion is a weapon like any other, and unconscious though Juno suspects it may be, he had been trying to intimidate Juno away from this. From vulnerability. Because Juno’s seen Peter Nureyev vulnerable before and, hell, deep down he’s just as scared and stupid as Juno is, and he wants to protect himself from admitting that.

“I… don’t quite catch your meaning,” Nureyev says, in his soft voice, the one that reminds Juno of awful tombs and the quiet, comforting moments of intimacy found within them. God, how fucking strange it is that they _lived _that and don’t even acknowledge it anymore. Like it happened to two different people.

In many ways, it did, and that’s what needs talking about.

“You said you worry about what to say around me,” Juno says, and watches Nureyev tense again.

“As I told you—”

“I don’t want that,” Juno cuts him off before he can make excuses. He makes himself breathe before he continues, “Nureyev, no matter who we are to each other, I want to be close to you. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t… _say_ things to me.”

Nureyev is silent for a moment. Juno watches him breathe, his chest rising and falling, and then he says, “You are close to me. Closer than anybody else, Juno.”

Juno bites back a ‘_thank you’_ and three ‘_I don’t deserve it’_s, and says, “Right. And we can’t be that for each other—be close to each other—if we keep having to dance around it.”

“Dance around it,” Nureyev parrots warily.

“Around us,” Juno pushes off the dresser, his voice hoarse with exasperation, “Around this—this _dynamic _we have going on. We’re trying to be friends but we won’t talk about how we’re still into each other. And I’m into you, Nureyev. And I don’t care if you just want to be friends but at least lets be friends who _acknowledge _it. Otherwise we’re just going to be like this forever, being ‘careful about what we say’.”

He’s breathing hard when he finishes talking, and Juno realises he’s probably only been honest like that a handful of times in his whole life, and the weight of it almost exhausts him all at once. Nureyev is just looking at him.

“Fuck,” Juno says, “I didn’t mean to say it all like that.”

“Let’s go for a walk,” Nureyev says, “We’re obviously having this conversation whether I like it or not, and I feel twice as anxious when I’m standing still.”

“Right,” Juno says, “Okay, fine. Let’s go for a walk.”

They leave Juno’s quarters for a lap around the ship. Jet is in the control room plotting course with Buddy, so they’re well out of the way, and Rita and Vespa are still sleeping off Family Game Night. All in all, it’s surprisingly quiet.

Juno feels like he’s said enough, so he chews on his lip and watches the little bolts on the floor panels of the corridor pass under his socks as he walks.

“I don’t really know where to begin with what you’ve told me,” Nureyev admits, after a long moment in silence.

“Just start anywhere,” Juno sighs, “I’m sorry, it all kind of came out of me at once.”

They walk a few more steps in silence. Nureyev tries to say something, then stops. Then he sighs in frustration, “Oh, whatever. It’s childish, but I’ll say it. You meant what you said? About still feeling…” he waves a hand in lieu of finishing his sentence.

“Yeah,” Juno says, “I mean,” he laughs, “I think it’s been fairly obvious, for a long time, the way I still feel about you.”

“And I you,” Nureyev mumbles, almost to himself. He stops walking suddenly, in front of a porthole, and Juno stops a little further down at another one.

Space stretches out away from them. When Juno was a kid he used to buy bath-bomb type things that were meant to make the water look like space – deep and black with swirling points of glitter within them. He and Ben would stay in there for hours, imagining themselves the creators of galaxies and destroyers of worlds. It’s probably why even now when he looks out, he almost expects a ripple to run through the thick emptiness beyond, see the stars suddenly displaced by small brown fingers.

“You were right,” he says, and Nureyev looks at him.

“About?”

Juno shrugs. He feels his weight, feels the vast weightlessness around him. It’s isolating, but in a way that’s entrancing. “It’s beautiful,” he says, and looks over at Nureyev, “Every place more beautiful than the last.”

Nureyev smiles at him. “I did promise,” he says quietly, and somehow Juno would almost believe that Nureyev hung every star out there just for him.

So Juno decides to do something stupid. He does something for himself.

“I want us to work,” he admits. It should riddle him with anxiety but even though he feels his heart thud in his chest, there’s a calmness like a heavy blanket over him. Knowledge, he supposes, that they’ve been through so much that words couldn’t possibly tear them apart, even words like these.

“Us,” Nureyev mirrors, and he knows damn well what Juno means but he asks anyway. “In a romantic sense, you mean?”

“Yes,” Juno concedes.

Then he sees it: the flicker of Nureyev’s eyes away from his face, the shifting of his stance from resting to alert. Perched.

“But, Nureyev,” Juno says, with what he hopes is a grounding level of force to his voice, “This is a two-person conversation. If that’s not what you want from me—with me—right now, or ever, I’m not going to be offended. I just wanted you to know…” And here he feels his faux put-togetherness begin to waver, “…Where I’m at, I guess.”

Nureyev turns his head to the porthole and nods slightly. His heel taps against the ground a few times, and then stops.

“I want that, too,” Nureyev says at last, but slow enough that Juno feels the resounding ‘but’ hanging in the air, so he keeps quiet, and then it comes. “But I don’t know if it’s the best decision to make.”

“What does that mean?” Juno asks, trying to keep his voice level. Trying not to spook him. Like he’s a feral animal, and in some ways, having learnt to let instinct rule him, he is. Juno can relate to that, if in a different sense.

“We are quite literally partners in crime,” Nureyev says. “As of late, my work has been below standard, and much of it to do, my dear, with you.”

He offers Juno a quick, fond smile, and then glances back out the viewport, “On a job such as this, we cannot allow personal matters to cause us to lose grip. I appreciate how acknowledging our… similar desires might allow us to stop this constant guessing game and allow us to become more focused on our target, but to hinder that by embarking on a new interpersonal journey entirely—”

Juno laughs. He can’t help it, it bubbles out of him, a quiet, breathless giggle that balloons into a soft, chuckling laugh.

“Have I said something funny?” Nureyev asks, an acidic tinge to his voice.

“You’re just full of shit, Nureyev,” Juno says.

Nureyev raises his eyebrows, “Is that so?”

“Yeah, that’s so,” Juno imitates him, “So are you gonna tell me the real reason, or not?”

Nureyev looks at him for a long time. Juno looks evenly back. Then Nureyev laughs once, sharply, and leans his head against the side of the viewport.

“You’re very perceptive,” he says quietly, “Usually nobody can tell when I’m lying.”

“You’re actually a pretty shit liar,” Juno tells him, “Once you figure out what your tells are.”

He physically sees Nureyev stir with curiosity, knows the question of what his tells are exactly is burning within him, but Juno is glad he doesn’t ask. Because honestly, it’s not like Juno hadn’t expected that exact response from Nureyev a hundred times over. He’d had no reason not to believe him apart from just… a feeling. Like there was no way it could just be that simple.

“I suppose,” Nureyev starts slowly. He’s staring vacantly out of the window, a soft frown creasing his forehead, “That the last time we tried out… _us_, I was… caught off guard, I suppose. Disillusioned. I thought somehow that…” he pauses for a moment and then shrugs a shoulder, “We’d saved the day. All that was left for us was our happily ever after.”

Juno glances at him. He’s still not looking back, just staring vacantly out the viewport, his pretty makeup reflected in the reinforced glass. Then he looks down to his shoes and clears his throat.

“But you barely knew me,” Nureyev says. “And truthfully, I barely knew you, apart from what I’d researched. I fell in love with the you I dreamed up out of old news articles. I assumed similarities between us. I think,” Nureyev says, and then laughs softly, “I may have simply been very lonely.”

Juno kicks his foot into the side of the ship, not hard enough to hurt, and leans his head against the glass. It hurts to hear Nureyev admit it, even if it was something Juno had considered before.

“That’s not all it was, though, Juno,” Nureyev finally turns to look at him. Juno can’t meet his eye. “I only realised how lonely I was after—well,” he laughs again, “After you kissed me, actually.”

Nureyev looks away. Juno glances at him.

“I was so used to kissing as a natural part of a heist that it had quite lost the majority of its appeal. But you…” he shakes his head softly. “I haven’t stopped thinking about that kiss since it happened. It was the first time in a long, long time that I felt… well, anything, I suppose.”

“I…” Juno starts, and then laughs, “I still have the note you left me. I couldn’t stop thinking about it either. I dreamt about you… too much for me to honestly admit.”

“But aren’t you scared—?” Nureyev starts, and then stops himself. He hangs his head and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Scared that what?” Juno prompts quietly.

“It’s nothing. It’s not a common concern, I’m sure—”

“Just tell me,” Juno says. “Nureyev, you’ve gotta be able to tell me things. That’s the only way we can move forward. And I’m not letting you deal with this alone.”

Nureyev is silent for a moment. Then he sighs softly and his arms unfold, “Aren’t you scared that… you might find out you can’t make yourself love me? The real me, I mean, the useless me, the socially dysfunctional, nervous wreck, broke and in debt Peter Nureyev?”

Juno is hit with a wave of frustration. He wants to grab Nureyev and kiss him until he has no room in his lungs left for that kind of self-doubt. He forces himself to swallow it down, “Well,” he says, “That’s what dating is for. Getting to know each other properly. Figuring out if things can work. Taking it as slow as it needs to be. It might come as a shock to both of us, Nureyev, but sometimes you don’t actually have to jump headfirst into trying to love people.”

Nureyev laughs and leans his head against the viewport. He turns his head to look at Juno, Juno looks back, offering him the most genuine smile he can manage.

Nureyev reaches out for Juno’s hand. Juno takes it.

“We are very lucky,” Nureyev says, “That we still managed to stay friends through our last sort-of breakup. I’m worried that if things don’t work out a second time… things might be awkward beyond repair.”

“Well,” Juno rolls Nureyev’s concern in his mouth and works through it, shapes it into something nicer, “We’re two fairly reasonable adults. We can be good at communication. Sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” Nureyev agrees, with a small grin.

“I think we could talk our way through things, if they don’t work out. If we take things slow enough, it won’t be an issue.”

Neither of them speaks for a moment. Nureyev’s gaze on Juno is calculating, and Juno realises he is honestly caught.

“Do you know what I think?” Juno says.

Nureyev humours him by responding, “What do you think, Juno?”

“I think the two of us grew up learning to make decisions based on survival,” Juno says. “I’ve thought about it a lot recently – about how my instinct to protect myself has been ruling my whole life, how I never realised how skewed my instinct was and how much it was fucking up my life. I don’t think it’s fucked you up as much,” he offers a quick smile, “But I know we’re both scared of making a decision that could jeopardise our safety. And do you know what else I think?”

Nureyev’s voice is quieter now, “What’s that?”

“I think it’s time we stopped just _surviving_,” Juno says.

Nureyev looks at him for a long moment. Then he makes a soft, contemplative sound, and turns back to the viewport, nodding softly. He lets go of Juno’s hand to lean his elbows against the rim of the viewport. “It surprises me how well you know yourself,” he says. “I’m afraid most things like that escape my notice until others point them out.”

“Yeah, well. I had to work pretty fucking hard just to get this far,” Juno smiles at him.

“What do you want?” Nureyev asks him, looking back at him, “Honestly.”

Juno sucks in a breath. What does he want? It’s a lot of things. He knows Nureyev is still tensed, ready to break away at the nearest misstep and damnit, Juno is tired of dancing around what he _wants_, out of some fucked up, instinctual desire to deny himself happiness_. _So he breathes in again, and then he’s honest. “I want…” Juno starts slowly, “To take you on a date. On an asteroid somewhere. Or to your favourite place in the galaxy. Just the two of us. I want to have dinner and talk about you, and Brahma, and everything you want to tell me. And then I want,” he hears his own words grow in speed and confidence, “I want to curl up in bed beside you and watch your favourite stream. I want to know what junk food you like, and what embarrassing song you can’t get enough of, and I want to know how your mouth tastes in the mornings when we wake up together. I want to kiss you, I want to spend time learning how to fuck you properly, just the way you like it. I want us to fight and make each other cry and have stupid sappy make-up sex two hours later, I want—” Juno stops for breath, “Everything. With you.”

When he stops talking, Nureyev is just staring at him. Wide eyed and flush cheeked, and Juno thinks _fuck. Nice one._

“Well,” Nureyev says at last. “So much for taking it slowly.”

A laugh bursts out of Juno which is mostly air and nervous energy, and he leans his head against the viewport, “Yeah, and I forgot to mention I want to be married and have eight kids by the end of the month. Hope that’s alright.”

Nureyev smiles, “Fine by me.”

There’s silence for a moment.

“What do… um,” the question feels incredibly stupid after all of what Juno has just said, but he asks it anyway, “What do you want?”

“If my navigation skills still serve me right, there’s a dwarf planet a handful of clicks away that’s known for its traditional Outer Rim cuisine,” Nureyev suggests. “Perhaps… a visit there might be a place to start.”

And he smiles, and Juno smiles back.

“I’m not sure about the marriage proposal just yet, though,” Nureyev adds, and Juno laughs.

“Yeah, alright, I’ll put the ring away.”

Nureyev smiles at Juno again, and then steps forward. He hugs him, wrapping his thin arms around Juno’s waist, and Juno hugs back, nestling his face into Nureyev’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” Nureyev says, pulling back just enough to talk to him. “For talking to me. For making me feel… well. Wanted, I suppose. Like I’m not just another expendable thief. I’m used to feeling like the least important member of a team.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Juno breathes. He wants to say more, about how Nureyev is important, and wanted, wanted so much, but he gets caught just _looking _at him; at his lean face, those bright eyes, the imp-smile with just the tips of pointed teeth showing at the edges.

He’s still watching when that smile wavers slightly on his face. Juno feels his stomach swirl. His eyes dart back up to Nureyev’s, finds them already on him.

“What do you want?” Nureyev asks quietly.

“Right now?” Juno answers, “I… to kiss you. Please.”

Juno sees those teeth for just a second as Nureyev gives him a small smile, and then Nureyev turns his head slightly and slowly, softly, clumsily, Juno meets him there.

It’s like drinking a hot drink on a cold day – Juno feels warmth run down his throat into his stomach and out into his whole body. He means to keep it short and simple. Kiss him once and let them have some time off to work through it. But when Juno pulls away Nureyev’s lips stay parted just in front of his, and Juno can’t help himself.

Juno groans softly when Nureyev deepens the kiss just so, and he almost laughs when he thinks of how this is just how it had felt on his couch in Hyperion City almost two years ago. Nureyev’s a good kisser so Juno gives him everything he’s got in return, feels the rest of the world fade away until it’s just Nureyev’s mouth and Juno’s heady sighs and Nureyev’s hands on his shirt.

They stop at some point – Juno’s not sure he cares how long has passed, and Nureyev parts from him to sigh heavily. His eyes, when he opens them, are glossy and shining, his smile as facetious as ever.

“I missed you,” Juno breathes to him, “God, I missed kissing you.”

Nureyev tries to say something. His voice stops in his throat, and then he laughs, and nods, and pulls Juno back in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's a wrap!!!!!!!!! thank u all for supporting me on this journey this is the first long(ish) form fic ive actually completed in like several years lmfao. uhhh i recently got twitter at @onetiredb0y so lets chat if you wanna! thanks for all the comments they make my day. also i MIGHT do a 'several months later' extra chapter if yall hound me enough for it smh my head.


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy calendar new years from sydney australia! its 2am as i publish this, because i'm gay and also couldn't resist the idea of making this a perfect 20,000 word fic.
> 
> i also made an error in the last chapter -- my twitter is @onetiredb0y LMAO sorry yall
> 
> this chapter contains non-explicit sexual content!
> 
> also special thanks to alecjmarsh who provided a lot of the kissin headcanons via the discord that i couldn’t resist but use

A stunning visual of a bright blue bird taking flight over a deep green sunset fades out to black, and little white names in a language that makes Nureyev’s stomach unsettle start rolling onscreen. As the swell of emotion that always hits him at the end of such a poignant movie (but this one in particular) subsides, he feels a wave of bursting eagerness. He manages to hold it back for a second before it squeezes out of him, “Well? What did you think of that?”

Juno’s head shifts on Nureyev’s shoulder, and after a moment he says, “Yeah! Yeah, I liked the whole… social commentary aspect, about the, um, classism. And… the…”

Nureyev feels his heart sink, “Oh,” he says, “God, you didn’t understand it at all, did you?”

“Well… the subtitles were a little quick in places…”

“I’m so sorry, you should’ve told me, I would’ve turned it off right away and—”

“Hey,” Juno rolls over onto his stomach in Nureyev’s arms and shifts up on his bed to kiss him softly. Nureyev can vaguely feel the comms screen set up between them slide down the slope of his legs onto the blankets beside him. Juno parts from him, “I’ve never seen a Brahmese movie before. It was interesting! When did you say you first saw that movie, again?”

Nureyev sighs, “I’d never been to a movie before, so to celebrate my first heist Mag broke me into a cinema.”

“How old were you?” Juno asks.

“Maybe twelve? Thirteen? I suppose I don’t really know how old I am, so I can only estimate.”

“And you watched that?” Juno’s eyebrows raise.

“Well. I didn’t understand the darker meaning at the time.”

“The darker meaning,” Juno parrots, disbelievingly. Then he must catch the look of horror on Nureyev’s face because he adds, “The darker meaning! Right.”

Nureyev closes his eyes and sighs, “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I wasted your time like that.”

“No. No, hey, honey,” Juno mutters, and kisses him again. Nureyev’s lips quirk in a small smile into it. His stomach stirs every time Juno uses a pet name for him, in his beautiful voice.

“I liked it,” Juno promises him when he pulls back, “And plus, I love spending time with you. I was imagining young you with your long hair,” he trails his fingers over Nureyev’s shoulder and chest like he’s combing his fingers through imaginary locks, “Sneaking in to a drive-in with some young boy and making out in the back of the car…” he drives his knuckle into Nureyev’s rib.

Nureyev yelps and almost throws himself off the bed. “I’ve never done that,” he scolds, nursing his new wound with an exaggerated pout.

“You’re missing out,” Juno tells him. “Some of the best make-out sessions of my life have been in the back of cars at drive-ins.”

“What’s so different about kissing someone any other place?”

“Take me to a movie when we land on Ganzi II and I’ll show you,” Juno promises, his voice low and flirty, his firelight-smile in full blaze, and Nureyev laughs and kisses him. 

They shuffle around slightly so that they’re both comfortable, sitting beside each other on the bed, and kiss softly. Nureyev feels it – he may have referred to it secretly as _The Juno Effect_ once or twice – almost right away. It’s something like pins and needles and something like flying and something like being in love, he thinks, even if he’s reluctant to throw that notion around so freely these days.

Juno breaks and for a moment they breathe in each other’s air, and then Nureyev chuckles softly and cups a hand around the back of Juno’s neck to pull him in again. Juno’s tongue slips through the points of Nureyev’s teeth and he moans quietly, and Nureyev’s whole body goes up like a laser-strike from a long-dead law enforcement system. Juno kisses with all the brazen honesty that got Nureyev addicted to him in the first place, kisses with the very core of him, and Nureyev finds himself mindlessly leaning closer, his whole mind fuzzy with the soft warmth of arousal.

It’s really quite embarrassing, actually. Nureyev is a competitive creature by nature, and Juno has him quite beat in this department.

Juno pulls away and Nureyev catches his breath and then says, “How’d you learn to kiss?”

Juno breathes for a second and then frowns, “What?”

“To—make me feel like that,” Nureyev elaborates, “I’ve studied every kissing technique available, you know, and I always thought of myself as rather good. The best, maybe, because after a certain point people stopped taking my breath away like you do. So what is it? Something in the tongue, perhaps?”

Juno blinks at Nureyev for a moment. Then he laughs with pure delight. He laughs until he’s breathless-wheezing and he leans his head into Nureyev’s shoulder.

It’s hard to be offended when he’s so pretty like that, his shirt shifting to bare the strap of the lacy bra he’s wearing. Nureyev tries hard to be, anyway.

“You’re so stupid,” Juno murmurs, and Nureyev find it a little easier to be offended. Then Juno kisses up his neck and onto his jaw, and presses one firmly to his lips. “Kissing isn’t a science, baby,” he mutters.

Nureyev, miraculously, feels all of his offence suddenly evaporate. He barely holds back on saying ‘call me that again’, like some kind of hopeless romantic.

“You wanna know my secret?” Juno asks, “I have fun. I kiss the way I want to, Nureyev, I do what feels good. If you haven’t had a really good kiss in a while it’s probably because you make it too methodical. Try it.”

Nureyev pulls a face, “I’m afraid I don’t think I’ll be very good at improvising.”

“Just follow what feels good. It’ll be alright,” Juno says. He swings a leg over and settles into Nureyev’s lap. He’s much heavier than Nureyev (most people are, what with his peculiar bone structure), but he’s warm and comforting. He cups his hands either side of Nureyev’s face, and leans in.

Nureyev gets his hand either side of Juno’s waist, and tries to kiss him like Juno says. The moment their lips meet, Nureyev’s internal checklist bursts to life, trying to tell him how to move and when to use tongue exactly where. He’d barely even noticed it before, but now he’s aware of it.

He lets it go by pushing his tongue forwards into Juno’s mouth.

Juno moans softly and shifts on Nureyev’s lap, tangling his fingers into Nureyev’s hair. They haven’t had sex since they got back together a few weeks ago, it feeling somewhat of a big step considering the previous associations. Nureyev has been wanting their next time to be done right.

Nureyev turns his head and runs his tongue over Juno’s teeth and Juno moans again, shivering in Nureyev’s hands, and Nureyev thinks he almost passes out.

He breaks away softly. Juno’s eyes stay closed for a long moment. Then he smiles slowly and his eyes open. “Fuck,” he says.

Nureyev grins.

Juno leans in to kiss the side of Nureyev’s mouth, “Kiss me like that again and you might just seduce me, Mister Nureyev,” he mutters, a teasing lilt to his voice.

“Well,” Nureyev says, and turns his head slightly to catch his lips again.

Juno’s mouth opens into the kiss right away, his tongue licking a stripe into Nureyev’s mouth, hot and heavy. Nureyev shudders slightly, and lifts one of his hands to tug into Juno’s hair.

Juno moans and shifts forward in Nureyev’s lap, pressing as close as he can get to him. Without breaking the kiss, Juno’s fingers come to overlap Nureyev’s on his waist. Slowly, he pulls Nureyev’s hand onto his inner thigh, and leaves it there, inviting.

Then he breaks away. “Whatever you want, Nureyev.”

He seems to understand Nureyev’s hesitance, though they’ve never talked about it. Nureyev leans in to kiss Juno’s neck, hearing his breath catch right near Nureyev’s ear. Slowly, he inches his hand further into the apex of Juno’s thighs, and Juno makes a soft gasp, his hips rolling reflexively into Nureyev’s touch.

The mood isn’t quite right for sex, Nureyev decides, but that doesn’t mean they can’t play around, and they do, feeling each other up. Each of Juno’s sighs start sweet as sugar in Nureyev’s ears and turn burning hot by the time they hit his stomach, and the way he rocks almost unconsciously into Nureyev’s hips and hand is intoxicating.

“So beautiful,” Nureyev mutters between lovesick, wet kisses, “You’re so beautiful. I hope you know it, my love,” he says, and follows it up with a string of Brahmese pet names and sweet nothings.

“Fuck,” Juno responds, ever the more eloquent one. His hips still and his hands cup either side of Nureyev’s face and he just kisses him for a long time. Short, chaste kisses, again and again and again, until he laughs softly and rolls off of Nureyev’s hips to collapse into the bed beside him.

He’s still hard, and Nureyev feels a little bad, but when he rolls over to face him Juno smiles back at him as happy as he ever is, and he leans over to kiss him again. Then he laughs again and sighs, pulling away, “I can’t get enough of you. The moment I stop kissing you I want more.”

Nureyev’s grin lights up his whole face. He leans down to kiss Juno again, and then shuffles down into the blankets. At first Juno snuggles up to him, but Nureyev’s ribs can’t quite take the full force of his hugs, so they shuffle around until Nureyev is the one cuddling up to Juno.

“No—sweetheart, your legs are hanging off the edge of the bed,” Juno tries to shuffle them around again but Nureyev holds him down.

“I assure you, my dear,” he leans his head to kiss Juno’s shoulder, “I’ve never been more comfortable in my life.”

Juno laughs softly and hugs his arm around Nureyev’s side. He leans down and Nureyev leans up to kiss him softly.

“You make me so happy,” Juno mutters.

And without even thinking them, there they are again, the words _I love you_ bubbled up in his chest. Nureyev swallows them down and kisses Juno again.

They do that long into the night – kissing and mumbling things into each other’s mouths and against their lips.

“This is…” Juno says, just when tiredness is starting to take over their minds and both of them have lamented a fair amount about age and their respective lack of energy, “One of the best dates I’ve been on. I didn’t have a lot of romance as a young lady. In my relationships, I mean.”

“Neither did I,” Nureyev agrees, “Even though I dreamt about it since I was a little boy. Mag used to make fun of me for it. That and tell me that one day it’d kill me.”

Juno snorts, “Real cheery guy, your Dad.”

Nureyev feels a pang. Juno seems to sense it; his arms tighten on him.

Nureyev hums appreciatively and nestles his head into Juno’s neck, “I never thought I’d have a night like this with anybody, you know.”

“Yeah,” Juno says, “Neither did I. Well, once I thought I would. Thought I would for the rest of my life, but…” he trails off. Nureyev kisses his shoulder.

“I’m glad it’s you,” Juno says quietly. “I’ve never had anything like this. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Nureyev closes his eyes. He has to sigh; the feeling in his chest is too large to keep contained in his lungs alone. Here, alone together in a room with a person he—wants to spend a long time with in the future. It’s the kind of thing young Peter Nureyev dreamt about.

Juno leans down and kisses the very top of his head. Nureyev turns his head into Juno’s chest. Somewhere he remembers that he has his contacts in and hasn’t brushed his teeth, but for once in his life Nureyev lets his comfort win over his ego,

Nureyev falls asleep with Juno’s fingers carding in his hair, and a contented smile on his face. When he wakes up, Juno kisses him, and then pulls a face, and Nureyev laughs and thinks _I love you_.


End file.
